Back-end Accounting Capital

If we take an audit of BPO in Chennai, we stumble on many surprises. For
instance, automotive major Ford transferred some of its Asia-Pacific accounting
work to Chennai in the mid 1990s, when Ford's Indian subsidiary was launched
in the country. What started off with just ten people doing payables processing
operation from Chennai, this facility today has emerged into a Ford Business
Center with a 400-seat operation doing a range of back-end accounting work.

Another success story is SCOPE International, a subsidiary of Standard
Chartered Bank. Today, Scope employs more than 3,300 people, has a 500,000 sq ft
of built up space with a capacity of up to 5,000 plus seats. Moreover, Scope
services most countries, about 54 countries in the Standard Chartered Group. The
work is being done in 23 different processing units. The operations range from
banking, global HR, financial services, software development, maintenance, and
IT help-desk support. The scale and magnitude of operations makes Scope one of
the biggest BPO operations in the country.

World Bank was another benchmark for Chennai's prowess in the BPO space.
According to Lal Gardner, director, World Bank, "We looked at various
parameters including availability of relevant skills, robustness of IT,
infrastructure, real estate and the number and experience of similar entities
established in the city before deciding in on Chennai."

If Chennai comes through such elaborate preliminary studies done by entities
like World Bank, it sure is a place to reckon with in the BPO space. We present
some of the leading and upcoming BPO's operating out of Chennai.

Sutherland Global Services

Started its India operations from Chennai in 2002. According to Dilip
Vellodi, chairman and CEO, Sutherland, "One of the most important reason
for choosing Chennai as a destination was the fact that the communication
infrastructure was robust enough to handle our client needs without failure.
Exceptional and uninterrupted customer connectivity without compromise to the
communication and data infrastructure are critical to our operations".

Sutherland
provides global outsourcing services that include transaction processing, back
office business process management, process consulting, technical support,
customer care and account management services. It has 13 centers across the
globe and operate out of eight centers in North America and five in India-four
in Chennai and one in Mumbai. The company caters to financial services,
software, hardware, and telecommunications verticals.

SlashSupport

SlashSupport is an advanced technology support company and started its
operations in 1999. According to Shiva Ramani, CEO, SlashSupport, "We
operate in the advanced technology support space, specializing in both,
enterprise and SOHO. Our service offerings include enterprise technology
application and product support, consumer technology application, and product
support and system management services.

Lason India

Lason India (formerly called Vetri Software) started its operations in Chennai
in 1992. The company has successfully adopted Six Sigma and TQM to increase its
productivity and quality of delivery. Lason Incorporation uses the Indian
operation as the base for data capture. The company, which is the biggest
delivery center in Chennai, provides transaction processing, electronic content
services, and co-sourcing.

Says Pradeep Nevatia, MD, Lason India, "Lason is the only BPO
organization to offer the high-end adjudication services to many of
its Fortune 500 customers." Lason India is one of the largest
transactions processing BPO in India, with over two billion records processed
every month. Over 300,000 HealthCare claims processed every single day. Provides
directly and indirectly employment for over 5000 and operates out of its 140,000
sq ft facility in Chennai.

Sundaram Business Services (SBS)

SBS was formed in mid 2001 to process the high volume back office work for the
Sundaram Finance Group. This was a consolidation of almost 50 years of
transaction processing experience of the Group. Says PS Raghavan, executive
director, Sundaram Business Services,"Chennai has a large skill base in
finance and accounting and our service offerings include accounting, credit and
deposit processing, employee administration and insurance and banking related
processing services" The current headcount is over 450 people and plans are
on to take this to around 600 over the next one year. In India, SBI Life is one
of its leading customers. In the overseas market, Australia based superannuation
firm Total Super is its first customer.

Scope e-Knowledge Center

Scope was established in 1987 as a business
research organization. It forayed into the Knowledge Process
outsourcing (KPO) space in 2001. Says R. Sivadas, director and CEO, Scope
e-Knowledge Center, "Unlike in the BPO industry where the focus is on
executing standardized, routine processes, KPO requires carrying out processes
that demand advanced information searching, analytical, interpretation and
technical skills as well as some judgment and decision making. Naturally, the
human capital required also constitutes professionals such as doctors,
engineers, attorneys and accounting professionals"

Shrikanth G in
Chennai